33. Hereditary (#18)

This week “The Rotten Horror Picture Show” jumps way up the list to number 18 with a modern classic that is regarded as one of the scariest films of the past decade, Ari Aster’s Hereditary. It’s got everything you could want from a haunted house/possession/cult movie, plus some pretty effective family drama, all steeped in an art-house slow burn that’ll leave you thoroughly creeped out and disturbed by the end of it.

When the matriarch of the Graham family passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry, trying to outrun the sinister fate they have inherited. Family trauma feeds directly into hauntings, possessions, decapitations, demonic cults and spontaneous combustion as Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff and Milly Shapiro get pulled deeper and deeper into the darkest corners of their supernatural family history.

Join Clay and Amanda as they climb the family tree of delicate hobbies, exceptionally poor coping mechanisms, the only eulogy you’ll want to be given at your funeral, ghostly drawings of Eugene Levy, and the MOST questionable of questionable parenting (although hotly debated by Wes – is there really anything that’s not questionable parenting?)

One of the newest, hottest voices in modern horror, Ari Aster delivers in Hereditary a movie so well-crafted, it’s hard to believe it’s only his first film, and his clear style, great character work, and amazing visuals signal that he’s got a great career ahead of him in the horror genre. Hereditary digs down deep to really creep you out on a level most horror films don’t even attempt to reach, and is definitely one modern horror flick that deserves its high ranking on our list!

So get your dioramas set up, eat some nuts, drive recklessly and lose your head with us…if you DARE!